Google is racing (at 25mph) ahead in the self-driving car wars May 18, 2015 Fed up waiting for Tesla's self-driving car to emerge? Us too. Luckily Google has the answer. The Silicon Valley giant is releasing its prototype fleet of self-driving cars this summer ahead of a “small pilot” in the coming years. According to Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car project, “a few” of the vehicles [...]
Is a major qualification board’s chief right that pupils should be able to use Google in exams? April 30, 2015 Mark Dawe, chief executive of OCR, says Yes The pupils of today will not be relying on rote learning for success in the workplace. Everyone has a computer available to them and uses search engines; what matters is how they interpret results. We aren’t suggesting that this is a replacement for traditional assessment, but it’s [...]
Google pledges to give millions of pounds to news organisations across Europe April 27, 2015 Google is offering to give news organisations across Europe €150m (£107m) worth of funding, to help them earn money from their own online coverage. Those eligible to receive the money range from established publishers to start-up news providers, and the money will be given over the course of the next three years. According to [...]
Google misses earnings and revenue estimates in first quarter results April 23, 2015 The figures Google once again disappointed investors after earnings in the first quarter missed analysts' expectations – the sixth quarter in a row it has fallen short. Earnings per share came in at $6.57 per share – short of the expected $6.61 per share – on revenue of $17.3bn. That marked a 12 per cent rise [...]
Google chairman Eric Scmidt buys stake in New York hedge fund from Lehman Brothers April 23, 2015 Google chairman Eric Schmidt has snapped up a 20 per cent stake in a New York hedge fund from the estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings. Hillspire LLC, the family office of multi-billionaire Schmidt, signed the deal for a passive stake in the $36bn firm. The price of the minority stake, which will not [...]
Project Fi: Everything you need to know about Google’s mobile phone network April 22, 2015 After venturing into manufacturing handsets and providing broadband, Google is making its first move into the mobile phone network business. "Project Fi" is the name given to Google's latest piece of disruptive technology. Here's everything you need to know about the internet giant's new mobile network. How does it work? Currently only available on the Google [...]
Mobilegeddon: The FTSE 100 winners and losers from Google’s algorithm changes April 21, 2015 It’s the end of the (online) world as we know it – and more than a third of FTSE 100 firms are not fine. So-called “mobilegeddon” is here. But that doesn't mean quite the end of the world – unless that is you happen to have a website which people tend to find through Google [...]
Elon Musk was on the verge of selling Tesla to Google for $11bn and even “shook” on a deal with Larry Page April 20, 2015 The millionaire magnate behind the world's best-known electric carmaker was on the verge of selling his company to Google as it failed to turn a profit. Elon Musk's Tesla was about to fall into bankruptcy and the founder had begun negotiating with Google on a deal for the firm, according to a new book on [...]
Google’s mobile friendly algorithm change: Why businesses could rue “mobilegeddon” April 20, 2015 Google is about to embark on a major algorithm change which could leave businesses who have yet to adapt to mobile see their customer base shrink overnight. Billed as “mobilegeddon” in some quarters, the search engine will tomorrow start to roll out what is expected to be the biggest change to its search results in [...]
Tech sector divided over Google battle as EU launches antitrust probe April 15, 2015 Google faced the most serious regulatory threat in its history yesterday after EU officials launched a probe into its market dominance, sparking division among UK tech players about the benefits of the move. EU competition bosses confirmed they would investigate the US giant over its dominance and whether it abused it to rig Google shopping [...]